{"id":138269,"date":"2023-11-13T18:32:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T01:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=138269"},"modified":"2023-11-13T18:32:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T01:32:04","slug":"cricket-budget-brandix-the-leaky-secrets-of-victoria-dam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/11\/13\/cricket-budget-brandix-the-leaky-secrets-of-victoria-dam\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket & Budget, Brandix & the Leaky Secrets of Victoria\u00a0Dam"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 05-11 November 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An armed federal marshal was ordered to guard the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, where that Hamilton \u2018debt\u2019 charade is also being played out between a \u2018vulture fund\u2019 and the governments of the US, England & France \u2013 to hoodwink Sri Lanka. The guard is not there to protect Sri Lankan interests. The Manhattan Court was host to a hearing on November 9 \u2013 set for a Friday, so as to be buried in the weekend news \u2013 involving the largest US bank JPMorgan Chase. JPMC is accused of facilitating Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s sex-trafficking ring \u2013 The Lolita Express<\/em>. The plaintiffs say they were abused as minors to entrap top West Asian, Arab and Muslim leaders (and Israelis too?), who were all sextaped. \u2018Both the New York Times<\/em> & Wall Street Journal<\/em> \u2013 the 2 newspapers previously active in reporting the case \u2013 have failed to share this latest intrigue with their readers\u2019 (see ee Media<\/em><\/strong>, There\u2019s a News Black-out on the Strange Doings in the JPMC \/ Jeffrey Epstein Sex Trafficking Case in Manhattan).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In an email dated Oct 24, 2023 to leaders of countries in West Asia, one of the girls abused (surnamed Ransome!) writes: \u2018No matter how hard the US & Israeli Administration<\/strong> deflect that they indeed have broken the Geneva Convention <\/strong>and have been committing war crimes globally for decades<\/strong>\u2026 We all know that the material Epstein filmed for both governments has been used to broker deals<\/strong> in their favour for years.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Another major Epstein tie to Israel was Epstein\u2019s largest financial benefactor, Leslie Wexner<\/strong>, the former CEO of the retailing conglomerate that previously owned Victoria\u2019s Secret<\/strong>, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc, and numerous other retail chains\u2026 In 1998 Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported that Wexner was part of the \u2018Mega Group<\/strong>,\u2019 a loosely organized club of 20 of the nation\u2019s wealthiest & most influential Jewish businessmen\u2019, their charitable interests often a cover for lobbying activities on behalf of Israel.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     We wonder how this sexual bribery has worked to control Sri Lanka\u2019s leaders to stay faithful to the colonials (all those manors in homonymous Kent!), prevent industrialization, and promote a fake garment \u2018industry\u2019. ee<\/em><\/strong> 10 August 2019 noted \u2018Epstein funder Les Wexner, owner of Victoria\u2019s Secret was linked to Brandix & MAS Holdings. Unsurprisingly, the Island<\/em> story reporting this: \u2018Brandix & MAS Holdings link to Epstein funder Les Wexner, owner of Victoria\u2019s Secret\u2019 has been erased (island.lk\/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=113895).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Cricket & Gaza & Victoria\u2019s Other Secrets<\/strong> \u2013 With all the hullabaloo about the Sri Lankan cricket team being instructed to lose vital matches to India, with charges that the International Cricket Council<\/strong> (originally conceived as the Imperial Cricket Council<\/strong>) \u2018has now become the property of India\u2019. Some add this merely reflects Sri Lanka itself becoming another slice of Gujerati (aka Gujju! Good Jew?) real-estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     As to why the emotional ups and downs of a country has been tied to another bookmaker\u2019s circus, is obvious. It is not cricket being played. We are being played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The so-called Balfour Declaration, which declared England\u2019s plan in 1917 for a Jewish homeland on Palestine\u2019s lands, made us recall the Balfour of the Mahaweli boondoggle. Sri Lanka was anointed with Test Cricket Status<\/strong> in 1981 in exchange for an exorbitant Mahaveli Dam contract given to English multinational Balfour Beatty, whose chairman Don Holland, was an MCC <\/strong>board member, and English PM Margaret <\/strong>Thatcher\u2019s chief fundraiser. Balfour Beatty insisted Sri Lanka\u2019s water was not pure enough for their employees, and had to import English water (London wastewater reprocessed 7 times!). Add that to the so-called debts Sri Lanka supposedly owes! Don Holland was chair of England\u2019s Overseas Projects Board<\/strong> (OPB), made up of traders and industrialists, which directed the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI)<\/strong>, that ran the Overseas Development Administration<\/strong> (see ee<\/em><\/strong> Aug 2023, Pt 3&4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Professors Turn Kanganies<\/strong> \u2013 Maybe these English \u2018overseas developers\u2019 could tell us about these Sri Lankan workers paying enormous prices for visas, posing as students to qualify for greener (& icier) pastures abroad. Be forewarned. You may have to learn how to \u2018spook the bots\u2019. Earlier, such \u2018students\u2019 avoided going to classes at university so they could also work and earn, while cramming. To make them more dependent, universities now use an electronic online code, auto-generated when each student attends a lecture. An online site marks their attendance. Students can\u2019t therefore share codes with anyone outside class because they have to do this physical register marking as well. Immigration officials apparently warn such \u2018students\u2019 via email, if they haven\u2019t attended lectures. They then cancel visas and deport students (after stealing their fees). Students who do favors for their teachers (sexual as well as slave labor, where their research is stolen) may get perks such as jobs inside the university, and are also given connections to companies! It is no secret that many universities in the US, Canada, England & Europe have become solely dependent on this student-worker trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 So what has brought us to this pass, where we are being forced to traffic workers and sell off vital lands, etc? Midst all this, the chief financial \u2018Apache\u2019 Indian agent also flew down to inspect strategic & mineral-rich Trincomalee<\/strong> and promote the Indo-SL FTA this week, while hailing ye olde \u2018Buddhist connection\u2019 and recalling 200 years of the colonial exploitation of Indian migrant workers brought to help rob the lands of Sinhale. They ignored the kangany role the colonial Indian government and their local sahibs have played in prolonging the plantation system, and instead want their merchants to target the \u2018high-growth\u2019 energy and pharmaceutical sectors.\u2019 \u2013 not to develop Sri Lanka\u2019s industries in those areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Indian Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman joined the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce recent India-SL Business Summit<\/strong> in Colombo, calling for \u2018a new economic model focused on export-led investment<\/strong> and tourism<\/strong>, and facilitating the private sector<\/strong> as the engine of growth<\/strong>\u2019! Isn\u2019t this exactly what was called, \u2018colonialism\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sitharaman was joined by Indian High Commissioner Gopal Bagley, Confederation of Indian Industry President Designate<\/strong> Sanjiv Puri, and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry<\/strong> President Subhrakant Panda, \u2019Sri Lanka\u2019s largest conglomerate\u2019 John Keells\u2019 CEO and Ceylon Chamber Vice Chair Krishan Balendra, MAS Holdings Chair Mahesh Amalean and Brandix Apparel Ltd CEO Ashroff Omar and Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Chair Duminda Hulangamuwa \u2013 \u2018industry leaders\u2019 \u2013 who \u2018echoed the Ceylon Chamber\u2019s views on pursuing an export-led strategy, begging Sitharaman\u2019s industrial bosses to \u2018increase the quota on garments to India\u2019 (see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>,  Ceylon Chamber leads private sector engagement at India-SL Business Summit).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 This ee<\/em><\/strong> is therefore incited to reproduce \u2018Advocata\u2019s Privatisation Campaign: the Anti-Social Market Solution<\/strong>\u2018 by Dhanusha Pathirana, which demolishes (the arguments, at least, of) the well-greased privatization juggernaut. Pathirana points out that the US and England are lucky that US-funded Advocata never advised them when they were trying to industrialize! It is an irony that the vulture fund is named Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton, the foremost promulgator of US industrialization, notably quipped, \u2018Don\u2019t do as the English say, do as they do!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     We also reproduce \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019s Debt Trap & the Vultures<\/strong>\u2019 by English economist Michael Roberts. Roberts suggests the \u2018vulture fund\u2019 Hamilton Bank<\/strong> lawsuit against Sri Lanka is yet another tag-team ploy by the US, England and the EU to corner Sri Lanka. Roberts adds, commercial lenders control at least 50% of Sri Lanka\u2019s debt<\/strong>. China has been demanding that these capitalist lenders including the World Bank and ADB etc also \u2018restructure\u2019 \u2013 which they refuse to do. The media happily ignores this demand. They prefer to smear all over us, John Bull\u2019s dung about \u2018China\u2019s Debt Trap\u2019. And the white-Black NGO choirs parrot the same hallelujah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Both Pathirana and Roberts deploy the most acute insights into Sri Lanka\u2019s underdevelopment; perspectives rarely broadcast. Both however lament so-called \u2018corruption\u2019 as well. The issue is, if all our leaders are all brahmacharis, all we would do is keep prolonging disaster, and postponing nidahasa, if we do not industrialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In a week that saw the so-called financial \u2018entrepreneur\u2019 Lalith Kotelawala pass into the next world in shady circumstances (nursed along by certain helpers). In such a system as this, almost everyone is corrupted, some of course way, way more than others. ee<\/em><\/strong> insists that such \u2018corruption\u2019 is the only alternative in a patronage-distribution system, where the dominating parasitic merchant and moneylender capital is blocked from transforming into industrial (machine making) capital by their multinational sponsors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 ee<\/em><\/strong> also gapes at Europe\u2019s and possibly the world\u2019s \u2018most valuable tech company<\/strong>\u2018, ASML (aka Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography), the only manufacturer<\/strong> of the machines needed to make advanced computer chips<\/strong>. \u2018This market monopoly<\/strong> rests on a Dutch tradition of knowledge and industrial policy\u2019 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, The Tradition of Knowledge behind ASML \u2013 Samo Burja). The US is preventing China\u2019s access to such technology. The ASML chief however laments China will figure how to make it themselves, and not buy their products: Physics is the same everywhere.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 ee<\/em><\/strong> continues our examination into how the solidarity of so-called \u2018international\u2019 unions (many funding local union initiatives) have been hijacked by the NATO agenda to protect their own control over industrialization and its more capital-intensive supply chains (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, Indian Labor Legislation & Cross-border Solidarity in Historical Context). It concludes, not surprisingly, and rather gently, that \u2018the colonial effort to regulate Indian labor and laborers\u2026 often served to privilege the economic interests of the English state, its employers, and\/or its workers\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ee <\/em><\/strong>has also argued before that all these so-called UN and other US\/EU initiatives about \u2018decent work for women\u2019 etc, are probes to grab certain sectors of workers for their own use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Finally, with all this diversionary blather about damned cricket (a horrible waste of time?), we continue our look into the Communist Party of Sri Lanka\u2019s Alternative Program<\/strong>, this time on \u2018Sports & Physical Education\u2019. The CPSL points out that games such as cricket and football arose during the industrial revolution in England, developing \u2018the teamwork & excellence needed by modern industry\u2019 \u2013 cricket for the wealthy and football for the working class. Though they forgot to add, rugby for the \u2018human resource professionals\u2019 to hone their skills at bashing workers\u2019 heads. And then there\u2019s tennis, swimming, ballet, golf, etc, for the wannabes who hope to seduce the ruling corpulent oligarchs while they try to diet. (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Daily FT<\/em>-ICCSL-SLID webinar on \u2018Expectations from the Budget 2024<\/strong>\u2019 \u2013 The Daily FT-SLID-ACCA and the International Chamber of Commerce Sri Lanka (ICCSL) webinar with Colombo MBA Association, CIMA, WCIC, AHRP, AAT, CSSL & CA SL had its keynotes plonked by Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chair MP (& Assembly of God<\/strong> vote recipient) Harsha de Silva<\/strong>, Ceylon Chamber President and Ernst & Young<\/strong> (EY)<\/strong>\u2019s Duminda Hulangamuwa, SL Banks Association<\/strong> President & Standard Chartered Bank<\/strong> native CEO<\/strong> Bingumal Thewarathanthri. The panel included MP Premanath Dolawatta, SL United National Businesses Alliance Chairperson Tania Abeysundara, Unilever<\/strong>\u2019s Hajar Alaffi, EY<\/strong>\u2019s Women\u2019s Chamber<\/strong> of Industry & Commerce (WCIC) Chair Anoji de Silva, Hotel Association\u2019s Anura Lokuhetty, Institute of Chartered Accountants\u2019 Sanjay Bandara, India-SL CEO Forum<\/strong> Secretary and Airtel<\/strong>\u2019s Ashish Chandra, Talliance<\/strong> Director & SLASSCOM\u2019s Ashique Ali, PwC<\/strong>\u2019s Sujeewa Mudalige, and CAL Group<\/strong>\u2019s Kanishke Mannakkara. Moderated by Management Consultant Talal Rafi<\/strong> and ICC\u2019s & SLID\u2019s Dinesh Weerakkody<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Daily\u00a0FT<\/em>-ICCSL-SLID webinar today on \u2018Expectations from Budget 2024\u2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cricket & Budget, Brandix & the Leaky Secrets of Victoria Dam<\/a><\/blockquote>